Community Profile

Centrally located between the Research Triangle Park and the Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point). With more than 133,000 citizens, Orange County includes historic Hillsborough, the county seat; Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina (the oldest state-supported university in the United Stated); and Carrboro and Mebane, former railroad and mill towns.

Orange County was founded in 1752, and was named after William of Orange (also King William III of England). Hillsborough was the center of North Carolina politics in the colonial era and hosted the state’s Constitutional Convention in 1778, where North Carolina delegates demanded that a Bill of Rights be added before they would ratify the U.S. Constitution.

Orange County is governed by a seven-member board of commissioners. The commissioners are elected to four-year terms by district and at-large in partisan elections, which are held in November of even-numbered years.